Japanese Gothic Tales (6 page)

"So, this third time, it was already evening. He saw her face in the
dim moonlight. It was she, he was sure, but this time accompanied by five men, one of them her husband. She was the only woman, surrounded by these fellows, noisily hurrying toward the beach. They were with her, and the gentleman was the only outsider. How could the two of them even have hoped to exchange glances? Now about those five men--"

14

"One had thick eyebrows and flared nostrils. Another, glaring downward, had a wide forehead and a pointed jaw. Still another man had his nose in the air and an unlit cigar sticking out of his mouth. And there was one who defiantly spun around and tapped the woman on her bottom with his fan. They were all dressed like commoners, each man wearing a thin summer kimono. That was fine, but one had on a light-yellow waistband, the knot tied casually and the ends of it hanging down to his calves. And someone else had a crimson under-sash wrapped high around his chest. How preposterous! The yellow waistband was the man's own, but the fellow with the crepe under-sash had stolen it from one of the young women. He was drunk, and it was his trophy.

"Needless to say, these men rubbed the gentleman the wrong way. Silhouetted against the sunset and the steadily growing waves, he imagined red and green demons leading a frail, helpless woman down to hell. Surrounded by them, she seemed dismal and desolate, and the sadness of it made him want to risk his very life for her salvation. He could imagine now what her life at home must be like, and he told me how uneasy it made him feel. But, sir, you must know how senseless it was for him to think that way.

"Have you ever seen pictures of angels descending from heaven into hell? They're quite marvelous, I think, because they give the impression that even the starving demons are going to be saved. And yet there's no need to feel sorry for someone like Benzaiten when she's surrounded by snakes because the serpents are really her servants. I'm afraid it was nothing but the gentleman's delusion.'

The wanderer folded his arms. "You know, when a woman finds out her lover has a beautiful wife, she gets jealous. But with a man it's the other way around."

"I see," said the priest. Now it was the wanderer's turn to philosophize.

"Men don't get jealous like that. If a man's lover forms a match with some other person—say the flower of Ono no Komachi and the moon of Oe no Chisato—he seems relieved. On the other hand, the man with the light-yellow waistband and the one with the crimson under-sash do make you wonder. If a Christian hears that his wife has dreamed about being embraced by Jesus, that's hardly the same as if she were seduced by a genie. Neither one is good, but if he had to pick, he'd pick the first, right? So you were saying, the woman was surrounded by these unsavory characters—"

"It was all because of the way Tamawaki's father got his money, carrying it home in his tattered coat, using the handle of his hoe for a walking stick. Tamawaki came to live as well as anyone. And though he was never cheap in his dealings with others, people of quality preferred to keep their distance. The sad truth is that he always associated with these questionable types."

"So what kind of a person is his wife?"

The priest nodded and cleared his throat. "Good question. She's about twenty-three or -four. Maybe twenty-five."

"With three children? You said the oldest one was thirteen." "Yes. But none of them is hers."

"Stepchildren?"

"That's right. All three from a previous marriage. There's a story about Tamawaki's first wife, too, but we won't go into that. He married this one called Mio about two or three years ago.

"Now here's the thing. No one knows anything about her—where she was born, where she grew up, whose daughter or sister she might have been. Did Tamawaki acquire her as security for a loan? Did he buy her? Some said she was the daughter of an aristocrat who had run into hard times. Others said she came from a wealthy household that had fallen apart. Some were convinced she was a high-ranking geisha, or that she had once been a high-class prostitute. There was no end to the rumors flying about, including one theory that she was the guardian spirit of some bottomless lake. Nobody knew who she really was."

15

"I surely couldn't learn much about her when I saw her. Of course, a priest isn't supposed to have much of an eye for that sort of thing any-way—the shape of a woman's eyebrows, her eyes, and so forth. I didn't think she was that charming, but her mouth was well shaped, hardly the kind that looked as if it would utter a word of false praise. And she did seem intelligent, as though she understood the vanity of life and the true nature of love.

"Her body and face expressed a lot of feeling. She wasn't the kind of woman who would give the cold shoulder to a man, whether a boatman or a horseman or even a priest. Even if she didn't allow a relationship to develop, she would at least answer her suitor with an appropriate poem. The knot of her sash, the hem of her sleeve - with the slightest touch, a man's bones would melt with the dew of human passion.

"She was refined. But you'd have to say her face was more striking than angelic. She had the looks of a woman who would dress in a crimson skirt and read by candlelight in a dark castle keep, the dew dripping from her sleeves, her hair too fine to be washed with ordinary water. She was like a woman swimming alone in a mineral spring, far removed from any sign of human life, wringing her long black hair, her skin like snow. She didn't fill me with longing so much as with the impression that she possessed a boundless power that could bewitch a man in a single glance. In her was heaven and hell and this world of dust, making me think that both her sins and her punishments were profound.

"Anyway, to the gentleman who fell in love with her, those other men, the one with the yellow belt and the other with the crimson under-sash, were mercenaries from hell dragging her to the beach at the witching hour. And that's why he ended up over at the Tamawaki mansion.

"At that spot where the river curves away from the beach road and runs along the back gate of the mansion, he stood in the shade of a reed fence and watched her and the men walking among the pine trees on the other side. She stood among the three men as they moved in a line together. He could see her face clearly but, because of the fence, her sash and skirt and everything from her shoulders down was hidden. The four moved among the flowing grass and Chinese bellflowers. Gradually, they disappeared, leaving him to wonder if they had sensed his presence and had led her off to some other part of the mansion. The fiendish-looking one in the lead seemed to be saying to him that he would never get to see the woman again, at least not until the next life. But then again, maybe all they were doing was enjoying the miniature hill that had been recently built in the garden.

"Finally, as if realizing he would have to meet her under different circumstances, he went and stood among the trees on the other side of the river. This, too, was Tamawaki's property, and he had begun clearing away some of the timber. There was a large tidal lake and an area of green grass, surrounded by the thick stand of pine. Right now the violets are in bloom. Come summer, there will be Chinese pinks. And in the fall, the bush clover. It's a quiet spot. You ought to go take a look."

"Sounds a little gloomy."

"Not at all. There's plenty of light. The perfect place to take a walk and read a book."

"What about snakes?" the wanderer suddenly asked.

"You don't like snakes?"

"Not really."

"Why not? I never understand why snakes have such a bad reputation. Take the time to look at them closely and you'll see they're very gentle creatures. Yes, they rise up and stare at you when you pass by on the road. But look back over your shoulder, and you'll see how they lower their heads and turn away in embarrassment. They're hardly what you'd call hateful animals." The priest laughed. "They have feelings, too, you know."

"That's even worse."

"I wouldn't worry. Snakes don't like salt water, so you won't find them near the lake. These days Tamawaki's wife isn't staying at the mansion, anyway. And all those holes in the ground? They're dark and empty and as numerous as the chambers in a wasp's nest. They're holes for crabs, actually, not for snakes. And they're so small you could never get your foot stuck in one."

16

"But to the gentleman, those holes must have seemed like eyes in a skull. He walked around the lake and then toward the river. No doubt
the Tamawaki mansion began to seem like a prison for the woman he now laved.

"The tide ebbed and flowed almost imperceptibly. There against the dull-gray cliff neither floating nor sinking, were five or six water- soaked logs, doomed eventually to fall apart and turn into hundreds of carp. No doubt he thought he could make them into a boat if he had a
saw; or that he could fashion them into a
raft if he only had rope enough
to tie them together. But he had neither saw nor rope; and without them, how could he cross love's abyss? He could never do it,
at least
not while he was still alive. Only his soul would be able to make that journey.

"Before the gate, surrounded by t
he pine groves, he stood on tip
toe. To the butterflies, he must hav
e seemed like a fickle man, wan
dering among the young trees, able to see the others only from the shoulders up, feeling that he himself had lost his legs and his feet, that he had become a bat fluttering about at midday.

"From the bosom of his kimono he produced a book and began to read.

Flames of tapers, hung on high,

Emblaze the gauze-screened air.

In the flowery chambers at night

Men crush the cinnabar-fed geckos.

The elephant's mouth puff incense forth,

My Persian rug is warm.

The Dipper hangs o'er the walls,

I hear the water clock's gong.

Cold creeps through the cave-hanging net

As palace shadows darken.

The brilliant simurghs on lintels of blinds

Wear the scars of frost.

"Here in Japan, the image would probably be of a frog crying at the moon from where it sits beneath a balustrade. A few lines later, the poem reads "lock up this poor Ch
en," because Lady Chen, a favor
ite of Emperor Wen of Wei, later fell out of favor and was imprisoned.

In dreams I pass through the gates of my home,

Up past the sandy isles.

The River of Heaven curves down through the air

To meet the road on Long Island.

Chen is released from the palace and rides upon the back of a fish. Splaying the waves, she makes her escape.

"Quietly intoning the poem, the gentleman started to weep; his eyes watched the logs sink and rise and flap their fins as they approached the gate. He stared a
t them. He glared at them. Some
thing was happening. The poem, by the way, is i
n the T'ang Collec
tion, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," the visitor replied. "How did you say it went? She sees herself returning home in a dream, up past the sandy isles? It's almost as if her soul were wandering in a desert. 'The River of Heaven curves down through the air to meet the road on Long Island.' Wh
at a sad poem. It even makes me
think she's being held prisoner. So, tell me, what happened next?"

"Next? Well, his face got thinner," the priest continued. "His eyes grew sunken. He turned pale. Then one day he finally got up enough energy to go into town and get a shave. And that's when it happened.

"He had his hair shampooed, and, for the first time in a long while, he felt refreshed. He walked out of the shop and saw, right across the street, one of those country mercantiles where they sell everything from tobacco to kitchenware. The ground in front of the shop door was sprinkled with water, and a lantern was hanging from the eaves. Someone had laid a porch
-
like platform over the gutter and into the street, and there two people s
at facing each other playing sh
ogi. They were using thin slices o
f wood for missing pawns. A com
mon practice, as you know.

"As he had nothing else to do, the gentleman went over and stood on the side of the road to watch the men. Both players were taking each other's castles one after another, slapping their pieces on the board, and shouting each time they triumphed. One of the players was tending his child, probably while his wife was at the bathhouse, holding the little boy on his lap and chewing on his pipe, cup facing down.

"Each time he shouted, it looked as though the pipe was going to hit the child on the head. The boy, his brow more wrinkled than his father's, was trying his best to grab it. Fortunately, the pipe wasn't lit, so while the father was moving around, trying to save his castle from being taken, the boy was in no danger of getting burned. The son would reach out. The father's castle would escape.

"Just as the child started drooling, his father suddenly shouted out his victory. Witnessing the fall of the opponent's general, a tall, barrel-chested, ruddy-faced Zen priest, who had been looking on with the corners of his huge mouth turned down, reached over and playfully grabbed the bridge of the winner's nose with his c
rowbar of a thumb. 'Good game!'
"
He laughed.